Tag Archives: Seastar

A couple of weeks ago, on some of the beaches in the northern section of the South Arm peninsula, I located some seastars (orange pronged starfish) and threw them up onto the dry sand so they could no longer breed and multiply. I recorded that these seastars had infected our Tasmanian waters and were a proliferating pest. Today’s Sunday Tasmanian newspaper has published an article about the seastars’ new enemy: the University of Tasmania’s Diving Club. Recently members of the club have been conducting a clean out of the waters at Blackman’s Bay (located across the Derwent River from the South Arm peninsula) – and doing so in a more humane way than I was. Apparently a species of spotted handfish used to be common in these waters but is now rarely seen. The divers hope that this fish will return once they rid the area of the seastars.